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| Kirinyaga Fruits |
The second day. I woke up early as usual and tried working that hour before I headed for school. It seems tough having to balance school life and work life. I had an hour to spare. Today I decided I will try packed lunch. I had visited Kirinyaga over the weekend and I was sorted for veggies fruits and all. Including sugarcane. I buttered several slices of bread. I added a passion fruit, a tree tomato and a banana. I packed this into a dish that I had bought for my sister last year, after a lot of nagging… That she wanted to be carrying food to school. Hmm… I think she only used it once or twice. Then I added a spoonful of Glucose to juice that I had prepared in my water bottle. All this I put into my bag already for school. Then followed all the normal, preparations, I left the house and as I was waiting for my Matatu, I realized that I don’t have to be paying the Ksh 70/- I paid yesterday to the major bus service – Umoinner was charging at rush hour. By this time I was still learning the traffic and matatu patterns at this side of town at this early hour. So I got into a Double M. charged Ksh 50/- All was well. Silent, took a nice seat. It did not have the noisy norm of a typical Umoinner. A few minutes after I had sat down I realized that my trousers were wet. Then it hit me… The window seat was wet. I never used to check these things. It hit me that day. I quickly moved seats. But this time I checked and rechecked the seat. It’s the norm of window seats to be wet since the guys who wash these buses don’t care that the windows are not properly closed. And they are washed at night. It took its time to get to capacity. I was comfortable with my new seat. I listened to 48 Laws of Power the whole way.
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| Back Benchers Co. |
I got to school on time and sat by my window seat as I watched the vehicles passing down below. I was still, not believing I was here. So there were these spans of fantasy… Me driving into Wilson someday… How life would be as a pilot. So far everything was rosy to that point. The Subaru’s and BMWs that drove into this place!!! Wa! Would definitely love to be there someday. The rest of the day sailed pretty smoothly. Over break time when everyone was out for tea, I got my juice bottle, took a few sips and then made some progress with my Audio book – 48 Laws of Power. Lunch time the same thing. I shared my Lunch fruits with my friend Kenneth. Our class to this point had 17 students. More would be coming, said the admin. Major Amin was always in our class talking to us and encouraging us and urging us to bring our minds to the matters at hand. Our Radio Telephony class was pretty interesting. Our lecturer who is currently an Approach Radar controller at Jomo Tower, introduced the unit in an interesting way. He asked us a very simple yet complicated question. “Why aviation?” He started by telling us how he got into the career by chance after graduating from campus. I will answer my bit of this question and when I get the chance to interview my classmates, I will include it & their journey in this blog under Pilots Life.
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| The View. |
Aviation for me has been a dream since the year 2000 as earlier mentioned in an article I wrote several years back – Career Path, I have always imagined myself flying aircraft just for the fun of it. I had not known about pay grades by then. I only learnt of Pilot pay grades much much later after enlisting in the military. Now everyone around me was assuming that I was flying for the Air Force. A good assumption I must say. So when an online conversation arose with a former Mang’u Man who was at Kenya Airways at the time, I became interested in the pay grades. I did some research and learnt that the major pay off while flying for the Air Force was the thrill of flying the jets. While most admired my imaginary job, it always took a lot of explaining to convince someone why I was not flying, yet the others were. Or is it just my friends and relatives who think the Air Force is just about being in the cockpit? But the assumption/ expectation was and still is valid because most of the Mang’u men in the Air Force are/ were pilots. Again nothing less is expected of a Mang’u man. Credits to that background – Has been a major inspiring force in this endeavor. I used to feel discontented to an extent, feeling like I am underutilizing my potential, and this is part of what fueled my “I am in the wrong place” mentality and I started working towards the whole piloting thing. One thing led to another and here I am. The lecturer asked. “Are you sure, it is not the money?” “The Fancy shiny Cars, your friends at KQ, Juba, 540, Bluebird etc are driving?” “Well… You have a point sir, but that has not been the main focus in this endeavor. I just want to be in the skies and I have undergone through a lot to be there. My love for cars, has nothing to do with their affordability as at this point.”
That lesson was in the afternoon and it worked out well, the aspiring captains had quite some interesting stories to tell & time flew fast. He did not want anyone sitting at the back and yet there were empty spots at the front. So for the first time in flying school I sat at the front… Second day. At least it was not a boring lesson, but I noticed a dash of dizziness at some point. Probably fatigue and poor rest from last night & another early morning. My experience with colleges – trust me I have been to many… The first week/ or the first few days, is a good point to bring the mind to work without so much strain that would create a bad attitude towards whatever endeavor. Evening came and I took a Matatu to town where I was to attend an evening meeting. I braved through the hunger that almost took me down. But the Glucose laced juice kept me going through the rest of the evening. I ended up getting home around 9pm too tired to do anything besides a shower, eating and sleeping.
Flying School: Ground School Day Two